Ah, Seattle. It’s good to be back!
SocialPro always provides a myriad of talented speakers and content, and day one did not disappoint. From Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest employees taking the podium to discuss updates and best practices, to channel specialists sharing actionable tactics to boost a brand’s social prowess, below includes our favorite knowledge nuggets from day one. Â
Facebook has a 10-year plan! Facebook’s Head of SMB Business Marketing Wei Kuan Lum kicked off the morning keynote with a 3-,5-, and 10- year product roadmap that includes expansion search, video, VR, drones, and lasers (wait…what?).
Highlighting that most of the world is still unconnected, Lum noted there is still work to be done when it comes to building products and technology that empower people to share their stories.
Facebook thinks about who is not yet being served, not how many are. – Wei Kuan Lum #socialpro pic.twitter.com/zxzKJM45S6
— Kevin Mullett (@kmullett) June 20, 2016
Video: Adapt or perish. One hundred million hours of video are viewed daily. Facebook 360 and Live ad formats are experiencing adoption. Twitter’s Nate Wright indicated video ad units will see future expansion, and Pinterest’s Brittany Mohr said video ads are on the horizon. Â
Pinterest packs a PUNCH (with data to boot). The last session of the day brought the house down (and appetites up) with content from Matt Siltala of Avalaunch Media, Lorraine Goldberg of AllRecipes and Brittany Mohr of Pinterest.
Takeaways:
- Because 80 percent of pins are repins (they live foooorrreevvverrrrr), evergreen keyword descriptions are key to getting the most out of a pin.
- With Pinterest ads, you are paying for the initial click; each residual click after that is earned media.
- Pinterest now boasts over 100 million users, 75 billion pins, and 1 billion boards.
- Still think your brand isn’t “right” for Pinterest? Fifty percent of users are international, 1 in 2 users are millennials, and 1 in 3 new signups are male. #boom
It takes a pin on Pinterest 3.5 months to get 50% of its engagement. WOW! @Matt_Siltala #SocialPro
— Karianne Stinson (@Karianne) June 21, 2016
Don’t rely on the ‘preview ad’ tool in FB mobile ads. Send the preview link to your phone, then test the ad format in every device, OS, and screen size that has money behind to ensure the best user experience.
Don’t rely on Facebook mobile ad preview it’s a liar…sometimes. View on phone. – @daverothsays #SocialPro pic.twitter.com/PLgwakHWLs
— Kevin Mullett (@kmullett) June 20, 2016
Successful ads provide experiences, NOT sales pitches
Throughout the day many speakers shared that long-term success comes from providing users with a feeling, solution, or experience that feels natural (not forced).
Instagram is “more heart than brain,” as David Roth of Emergent Digital explained. Â Less hashtags and obvious branding plays are the way to go.
McNeil (Facebook) also added how storytelling ad formats like Canvas are quickly becoming powerhouse solutions to help brands better connect with users. Though no coding is involved, there is a learning curve to perfecting the platform, so plan ahead.
Dwell time on Canvas is averaging as high as 12 minutes. That’s nuts (and awesome)! #12b #socialpro
— John Lee (@John_A_Lee) June 20, 2016
Just because you can track it, doesn’t mean you should. John Lee of Clix Marketing stated that while there are some “universal metrics” in social, it’s best to define what success means for you (or your campaign), then track that. Â
“Data overload should be the eighth deadly sin.” 🙌🏻 #PREACH #SocialPro #12b @john_a_lee
— Maddy Wold (@maddywold) June 20, 2016
When optimizing Twitter landing pages, dump the social share buttons. During the ‘Advanced Twitter Ads Strategies That Capture Audiences & Convert’ session, Geoff Colon of Microsoft explained that users coming from Twitter will share on Twitter, and they tend to see higher share rate when other social channel share widgets are removed.
Rethink (& test) hashtags in paid. When Ginny Marvin asked about the use of hashtags in the Q&A portion of the ‘Advanced Twitter Ads’ session, Twitter’s Nate Wright shared that organically, hashtags are an effective means of increasing reach. If putting money behind an ad to drive traffic to a website though, it is essentially one more diversion from guiding a user to a URL. In the end, it’s best to test to understand what works for each business, service, or vertical. Â
Exciting new updates are here (or OTW)
Facebook
Roth (Emergent Digital) shared that Advanced Website Custom Audiences have begun rolling out in the Ads Manager, granting users the ability to track users based on frequency, dynamic dates, devices, and aggregated values of site visits.
Twitter
Twitter’s Nate Wright says Promoted Tweet Carousels are on the horizon. Â Â
Pinterest
Mohr (Pinterest) got the crowd cheering (ok well maybe just a few of us) by sharing customer list, site visitor, and lookalike targeting options are rolling out within the platform soon!
Diamond-level optimization tips:
- Facebook’s algo decides the best performing ad in seconds. Keep ads to ad set ratio at a minimum to avoid an ad never seeing the light of day. (Wei Kuan Lum, Facebook)
- Think about using budget on daily-level; set every ad set to no more than 10 times of allowable CPA. (Wei Kuan Lum, Facebook)
- To succeed in a mobile-first era, use the ‘Ritz-Carlton’ strategy: Make sure every bit of information is accessible across all properties to provide the best service across all devices. (Cameron McNeil, Facebook)
- Use Audience Insights as a validation report tool to track results against assumptions. (John Lee, Clix Marketing)
- Nurture leads on Twitter with exclusion targeting by creating a conversion event for each conversion and excluding audiences as they move down the funnel. (Sahil Jain, Adstage)
- Scale social (efficiently) by segmenting the customer base, creating seed lists for lookalikes, and utilizing a nested lookalike strategy. (Sana Ansari, 3Q Digital)
- While auto-captioning is alive in Facebook, it’s still evolving and can’t yet be fully trusted. Also, make sure video production matches Facebook default settings. (David Roth, Emergent Digital)
Make sure to check back for a day two recap of #SocialPro.
